thumb|Sign in Seychellois Creole, [[La Digue. , meaning 'Please help to keep La Digue clean'.]]
Seychellois Creole (), also known as Kreol, Seselwa Creole French, and Seselwa Creole is the French-based creole language spoken by the Seychelles Creole people of the Seychelles. It is one of the national languages of the Seychelles.
History
The Seychelles were first settled in 1770, by French settlers from the island of Mauritius. The islands population was mostly made up of slaves with a few whites and free blacks. Over time the Mauritian creole that was spoken by the slave population diverged enough from Mauritian Creole to be considered its own creole separate from Mauritian Creole. It further diverged after the freeing of Seychelles slaves in 1835 and the subsequent influx of Bantu peoples from East Africa to the islands.
49 fables of La Fontaine were adapted to the dialect around 1900 by Rodolphine Young (1860–1932) but these remained unpublished until 1983.
Status
The Seychelles gained independence in 1976 and since 1978 Seychellois Creole has been one of the country's three official languages. It is currently the native language of over 99% of the country's population.
While Seychellois laws are written in English, the working language of the National Assembly is Creole and the verbatim record of its meetings provides an extensive corpus for its contemporary use in a formal setting.
In 2024, Google announced it would be adding Seychellois Creole to Google Translate; it was added under the name Seselwa Creole French.
Morphology and syntax
Seychellois Creole follows in subject verb object word order.
Lexicon
In several Seychellois Creole words derived from French, the French definite article (, and ) has become part of the word; for example, 'future' is (). The possessive is the same as the pronoun, so that 'our future' is . Similarly in the plural, in French ('the Outer Seychelles Islands') has become in Creole. Note the in — in French, is pronounced , with liaison.
{| class="wikitable"
! Language
! colspan="11" | Word
|-
! Creole
|
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|-
! French (IPA)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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|-
! French
|
|
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|
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|-
! Translation
| we
|
| all
| need
| to
| work
| together
| to
| create
| our
| future
|-
! Gloss
| we
| have
| all
| need
| to
| work
| together
| for
| create
| our
| future
|}
Loanwords
{| class="wikitable"
|+Percentages of loanwords from different languages in different word types
!
!English
!French
!Eastern Bantu
!Malagasy
!Indian Languages
!Portuguese
!African languages
!Chinese
!Arabic
!Unknown
!Total Loanwords
!Non loanwords
|-
!Nouns
|5.6%
|2.6%
|2%
|1.3%
|0.9%
|0.7%
|0.3%
|0.1%
|0.1%
|1.1%
|14.6%
|85.4%
|-
!Verbs
|2.4%
|0.2%
|0.2%
|0.8%
|
|
|0.2%
|
|
|0.2%
|4.1%
|95.9%
|-
!Adjectives
|2.2%
|
|1.6%
|1.4%
|2.2%
|
|
|
|
|
|7.3%
|92.7%
|-
!Adverbs
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|0%
|100%
|-
!Function Words
|
|
|
|0.9%
|
|
|
|
|
|
|0.9%
|99.1%
|-
!total
|4.2%
|1.6%
|1.4%
|1.2%
|0.9%
|0.4%
|0.2%
|0.1%
|0.1%
|0.7%
|10.7%
|89.3%
|}
Among loanwords in Seychellois Creole they have different frequencies words for the modern world, warfare/hunting, food and drink, animals, and the home show loanword rates over 10 percent. while words relating to cognition, emotions, social and political relationships, and the physical world show no loanwords.</blockquote>Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English:<blockquote>All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.</blockquote>
Notes
References
- Annegret Bollée. 1977a. Le créole français des Seychelles: Esquisse d’une grammaire, textes, vocabulaire. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
- D'Offay, Danielle & Lionnet, Guy, Diksyonner Kreol - Franse / Dictionnaire Créole Seychellois - Français. Helmut Buske Verlag, Hamburg. 1982. .
External links
- Seychelles Creole Vocabulary List (from the World Loanword Database)
- Seychelles Creole Magazine (Discover the Creole Culture)
- Liv Servis online triglot text in English, French and Seychellois Creole digitized by Richard Mammana
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Seychellois Creole